Vanity Fair

I found this week's episode rather laboured. Maybe it covered too long a period, but it didn't engage me as much.

Thackery said something like "We do not count ourselves among the military novelists". Perhaps he meant it literally - maybe he didn't feel narrating battles was his forte so decided it was best avoided. But the way he writes is highly effective and affecting.

Wasn't it during the Boer War that the British Army abandoned bright red uniforms for khaki? They realised that red coats made the soldiers easy targets for the Boer snipers so went for something that blended into the background. Until then warfare had been an oddly formal and stylised affair I think.

Muskets only had an accurate (by which I mean 'could hit a man sized target') range of around 80 yards even under ideal conditions; generally speaking it was considered wasteful to fire earlier than about 50 yards. Rifles were far more accurate (up to 400 yards) but up to four times as slow to load and far more complex and expensive to manufacture, and took longer to train with, so were largely left in the hands of elite skirmishers. Under such circumstances close-range volley fire was the only practical solution for the majority of infantry. Together with the thick clouds of white smoke produced by the gunpowder, camouflage was largely pointless and being able to tell who was who was far more important. (Trivia: the New Model Army, who were the first English soldiers to adopt the red coat as a universal uniform in 1645, chose that colour not to hide the blood as commonly thought, but simply because it was the cheapest cloth available in large quantities). It was only in the middle of the century that improved manufacturing techniques and advancing technology meant it was practical for rifles to become standard issue. The development soon after of practical breechloading guns and powder that produced less smoke quickly rendered colourful uniforms obsolete, but it took a while for uniforms to catch up with technology.

Well, if this had not been up against the Bodyguard I think it would have rated more highly. Yes, the last episode crammed a lot in but overall this was very well done.

I enjoyed it too and agree it suffered badly by being against Bodyguard and now The Cry. I always watched it first as I can't settle into a lighter show after watching something fraught, and catch the BBC shows on my recorder. But it was well done I thought and had a very good Becky. I loved the final scene with her servants drinking the champagne.